A ripple of excitement ran through the foyer as a battered van pulled up outside the hotel’s doors. Dented and dusty, the vehicle was hardly up to hotel standards so when security guards rushed forward I thought they would move it along as fast as possible.
To my surprise, instead of reaching for their guns, the guards started beaming like babies, clasping their hands in prayer and bending down deeply before the van.
A doorman reached for the passenger door handle as if it was part of a royal carriage. I glimpsed a flash of maroon behind the van’s dusty windows. Then, elegantly and with perfect timing, out stepped Lydia’s teacher, grinning like a rock star.
The concierge left his post and dropped to his knees in front of the monk, pressing the hem of the maroon robe to his lips. I’d heard the expression ‘kiss the hem of his garment’ but never seen it in action before.
The monk accepted the adulation with radiant dignity. Magnificent in his robes, he belonged in this setting. In Australia, he was held in awe by a few but mostly ignored or regarded as an oddity; a representative of an alternative religion. Here in Sri Lanka, the monk was part of a belief system that was the lifeblood of much of the population. It was suddenly easier to understand why, when he’d been staying at our place, he’d expected the sort of deference that I hadn’t been able to provide. Bestowing benevolence on all who bowed before him in the hotel lobby, he was treated as a demi-god.
For all the mixed feelings I’d had in the past, I was pleased to see him – and honoured he’d made the arduous journey down from the monastery to meet me. As a non-Buddhist and an old friend, I lowered my head respectfully, and hoped it was enough.
Close on the teacher’s heels followed the two nuns, who graciously accepted the (slightly shallower) bows they were offered. At last, a familiar figure unfolded herself from the van’s back seat and ran toward me. Smiling broadly, Lydia enveloped me in her arms and kissed my cheeks. I couldn’t remember receiving such a warm embrace from her since she was in primary school. All the resentments and brinkmanship of recent years seemed to dissolve. Something in her feelings toward me had shifted.
Hugging her, I noticed she was still dressed in white – a student, not a nun. And to my astonishment, she’d actually let her hair grow! Still, it was too early to make assumptions. Perhaps she was saving her initiation for my visit.
‘If there is a pearl in all the world, Lydia is our jewel,’ said her teacher, beaming at me. I wasn’t sure whether to interpret the remark as flattery. Either way, there was ownership in it.
The van and its passengers needed rest and refreshment before embarking on the long journey back to the monastery. Fortunately, they’d arrived just before noon so Lydia’s teacher and the nuns were still able to eat. Hotel staff respectfully arranged tables so the monk and his driver could sit together at one table while Lydia and the nuns sat with me at another. When Lydia chatted to the waiter in Sinhalese his eyes bulged with surprise, and his smile became incandescent.
‘Don’t be too impressed,’ she said as he walked away toward the kitchen. ‘It’s just country dialect.’
‘You mean hillbilly talk – like “them thar grits”?’ I asked.
Lydia led me to the buffet where she pointed out some local delicacies, which she assured me were delicious. It was too early in the trip to take gastronomic risks and become a healthcare liability, so I quietly avoided them in favour of pasta. Over lunch I asked Lydia if any other Westerners were staying at the monastery. She said no, it would just be us.
Soon after, with much bowing and hem-kissing from hotel staff, the monk and his entourage climbed back into the van. He slid into the front seat next to the driver, with the nuns sitting down behind him. Lydia I took the back seat. No seat belts. We’d have to rely on the Buddha perched on top of the rear-view mirror, along with the protection beads and (Christian?) cross dangling below it. Sweating already, I glanced hopefully at the air-conditioning unit sighing lukewarm air above our heads. Whatever lay ahead was going to be an exercise in trust.
The engine coughed to life with an explosive backfire. There was enough rural blood left in my veins to diagnose the scraping noise as clutch trouble. Staff waved a royal farewell as we roared and spluttered out the hotel gates. We rumbled over potholes past stands selling coconuts, bananas, brightly coloured blow-up toys, and (I was getting used to them now) the omnipresent Buddha statues.
I asked Lydia about the rows of brand new aeroplane seats that lined the roadsides. She said they were everywhere. Apparently, there was a tax exemption for vans imported with no windows or seats. Enterprising locals had got around the loophole by importing these vans like ours, drilling out holes for windows and putting in the seats. She pointed out the impromptu finishing in our vehicle.
Some villagers bowed when they saw the saintly beings in our van. Others kept going about their business – shopping, gossiping or carrying loads on their heads. We passed a handsome young man with no legs in a wheelchair, soldiers with machine guns slung like afterthoughts over their shoulders, boys playing cricket, girls with bright umbrellas strolling beside a railway line, a white heron in a river. A man with a box on his head smiled through our window and offered us evening shoes studded with jewels.
Sri Lankan roads aren’t for the faint-hearted. They’re mostly two lanes with an invisible third lane down the middle, which is disputed territory. Traffic from either direction claims the middle of the road with as much speed and aggression as his vehicle and the condition of the road allows. Drivers charge forward blasting their horns, daring anyone to challenge them. Even a bull elephant on the back of a truck doesn’t get right of way. It’s a combination of bluff and split-second negotiation – and a miracle head-on collisions don’t happen every two minutes.
In the back of the van without a seat belt, I was probably in more physical danger than I’d ever been. There was no point worrying. A monk and two nuns on board put the odds in our favour.
Halfway up a hill, we lurched to a halt outside a bank so I could withdraw money for the van hire. When the driver tried to start the vehicle up again it refused to budge. Helpful bank guards gave us a push start up the hill – heavy work, and beyond the call of duty. The engine heaved reluctantly to life.Triumphant and sweating, the guards waved us off.
Villages gave way to rice paddies, pineapple fields and stands of banana trees. Landscape unfurled in shades of green ranging from gloomy to fluorescent. As the road became steep, winding its way toward Kandy, the senior nun pulled her hood up over her head and slept like a caterpillar. The other nun’s smooth head gleamed in the steam-bath atmosphere of the van. The air-conditioning had died. Opening the windows would’ve been futile. Inside and out were equally hot and dusty.
We passed trees with leaves the size of dinner plates, a truck graveyard and a roadside box with Buddha radiating a pulsating neon light aura. Despite the intensity of the heat, I was taken by the colourful spontaneity of the place. Roadside advertising posters were refreshingly free of the semi-pornographic images we’ve become inured to in the West. Women were portrayed as wholesome and modestly dressed. Anorexic models didn’t get a look in.
The clutch jerked violently as the road became even steeper and more perilous. Toiling up a hill through a village selling nothing but pottery, I was reminded of the first time I visited Ubud in Bali twenty-five years earlier. People always say Bali was better twenty-five years ago. If they want to find out what it was like before tourism took over, they should visit Sri Lanka.
‘Sri Lankans don’t think of themselves as poor,’ said Lydia. ‘They just think Westerners are ridiculously rich. When you look at any distribution-of-wealth chart, that’s a fact.’